As modern technologies appear and mature, those concerned with security often fear that these technologies will expand the destructiveness of asymmetric adversaries, terrorists chief among them. Yet, historically, only a small subset of terrorists has been particularly innovative with respect to weapons selection and use. This interdisciplinary study seeks to fill a gap in current research on the topic of terrorist behaviour by examining the dynamics underlying terrorist weapons adoption, with the aim of elucidating the technological and organizational mechanisms behind changes in the instruments of terror. The study explores the topic from two different theoretical perspectives: the historical adoption of weapons by a variety of actors and terrorist (and more general) organizational innovation. The result is the identification of a complex web of factors that is distilled down to a framework representing a highly contingent interaction between the terrorist organization and the prospective weapon in a particular social, political, and security setting. In order to supplement and provide a preliminary validation of the initial model, the adoption behaviour of four different terrorist organizations is analysed, using pairwise comparison and other techniques. The cases largely confirm the central theoretical strategic and tactical logic of weapons adoption, as well as highlight the crucial role played by a variety of contingent factors, from ideology to the terrorists’ social networks. In so doing, the study challenges notions of technological determinism with respect to terrorists and emerging technologies by identifying several key factors that can confound or facilitate a terrorist group’s successful adoption of a new weapon. The insights gained through this study can assist policymakers and practitioners by identifying the technology-organization dyads of greatest concern and introducing a new methodology for discerning between those terrorists that are likely to embrace new technologies of lethality and those that will stumble along the way.

Global Terrorism is best summarised as: a self contained textbook on the subject of terrorism, versatile in its suitability for both distance and classroom learning, either according to a fixed academic schedule, or one which is self-paced. Moreover, it notably renders the subject of terrorism in both span and depth to a degree rarely, if at all, found in other contemporary works on the topic. Global Terrorism also includes some hitherto unassembled research findings, and creative invention (definitions and formula). Furthermore, serious dedication has been applied to presenting Global Terrorism in an academic format, which is demonstrated by virtue of: a) Descriptive and explanatory instructions concerning the Course Format. b) Instructions concerning the Method of Study proposed for distance learning. c) A full List of Contents detailing the entire syllabus. d) A lengthy and protracted Introduction for adequate preparatory purposes. e) 12 distinct Lessons with titles and sub titles indicating the content syllabus. f) Clear and pre-stated Scope and Objectives for each of the 12 lessons. g) Heavily illustrated throughout (475 illustrations). h) Richly presented text (frequent bulleting and numbering, and 50 tables/charts). i) Four major case studies. j) 12 historically notable Terrorist attack briefs (concise facts of the cases). k) 12 vocabulary tables (Keywords to Note). 1) Each of the 12 Lessons concluding in an End-of-Lesson Quiz (test) of 20 questions, to gauge assimilation. m) 19 Annexes: wide-ranging scientific, political, historical and other reference information and photographs. n) A Final Examination and award ofa certificate of completion for reaching a pass standard (75%). 0) The author (candidate student) standing as mentor for all enrolled students (gratis and in own time). Finally, Global Terrorism has fortunately attracted enrolments from several hundred students, both independently and through institutions such as the US Government and Universities (at Graduate and undergraduate level). Several hundreds of students have enrolled from over 20 countries, and include police, military, security and intelligence personnel, notably a number being from the UK Ministry of Defence, US State Department and Pentagon, up to and including the General Officer level. Author (candidate-student) and Global Terrorism were briefly mentioned by the United Nations Secretary-General in his report to the UN General Assembly on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism (Report number A/55/179).

This thesis examines United States detention policy and operations in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and the use of Guantanamo Bay as a key node in detention operations between 2001 and 2011, when the US was engaged in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations against various transnational and radical religious extremists. The purpose of this thesis is to synthesise information from 76 primary source interviews and various secondary sources, analyse US detention operations, and provide suggestions for detention policy makers for future conflicts. These first-hand accounts facilitate an accurate portrayal of events because of the depth and breadth of the experience of the sources from senior policy advisors in the US government to high ranking general officers in charge of detention operations to military personnel involved in day to day detainee operations and interrogations. The topic is further elucidated by the examination of the many declassified government documents and official Department of Defence press releases. This thesis illustrates how the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq followed an historic detention cycle where mistakes made led to lessons learned and impacted policy that affected not only detention procedure, but the overarching counterinsurgency effort.

This Thesis develops and applies a theoretical framework to understand Al Qaeda's ideology. A concept of ideology comprising a number of political myths, shaped through rhetoric is the central feature of this research. The Thesis tests the theory that extremist ideologies emerge out of social and political crises and postulates that the primary components of ideology are a number of political myths created in the context of historical,theological and political factors. These myths and other components of ideology are given form through rhetoric and the rhetorical styles and techniques employed, in turn, shape ideology. Rhetorical analysis is carried out to identify aspects of Al Qaeda's ideology, particularly in the construction of political myth. Analysis of the relationship between textuality and political style reveals that while Al Qaeda adopts republican attitudes to political debate, its textual style most closely matches the texts of modern revolutionary terrorists and reveals a great deal about its dual reliance on horrific violence and reasoned discourse. The rhetorical influences on Al Qaeda's main ideologue are examined to reveal how they shape its ideology. The research fills a gap in academic analysis of terrorism in general and ideology in particular by providing a novel framework to identify the roots, causes, beliefs and trajectories of a particular seam of political thought. Specifically, it identifies Al Qaeda as an extreme and inevitable manifestation of Islamist political ideology, which in turn was a reaction to a number of modern political and social crises and ideas. The political myths that comprise Al Qaeda's ideology are inherited from mainstream Islamism and are open to critical challenge. However, its motivations and strategies are driven by its primary ideologues' perception of their political and conflict experiences. The belief that Muslim countries are ruled by unrepresentative and ineffective regimes subservient to the West and the belief that through asymmetric tactics such as terrorism it is possible to destroy a superpower are the two driving forces that sustain Al Qaeda's ideology. These perceptions are less susceptible to critical debate and may only change after a transformation of political reality; when convincing changes have occurred in the nature of regimes in the Muslim world and when Al Qaeda's political aims of defeating the West are demonstrably unachievable.

Recent years have seen a great deal of interest in phenomena such as Al Qaida 'terrorism', Islamic 'radicalism' or, increasingly, 'jihadism' - on the Internet. However, as I argue in this thesis, much work in these areas has been problematic for a number of reasons. Much literature has been narrowly focused on the security issues which it pre-judges the content to raise, and has therefore taken some aspects too literally while ignoring others. Conversely, where authors have addressed 'jihadi' content or 'electronic jihad' as a phenomenon unto itself, they have had difficulty making sense of it within religious studies or political communication frameworks. In this dissertation, I propose an alternative approach. Deliberately eschewing frameworks based on pre-existing conceptions of religion or politics, I draw, instead, on the academic literature on fandom and subcultural media consumption. Using this conceptual lens, I attempt to analyse jihadism on the Internet (which I define in terms of online consumption of, and identification with self-described 'jihadi' content) as a subcultural phenomenon on its own terms. I argue that, without necessarily denying the role that beliefs and ideals expressed in 'jihadi' content may sometimes have in sustaining the physical violence of the 'global jihad', the cultural practices which constitute Internet jihadism have a tactical logic of their own which may not always coincide with the 'strategic' interests of 'global jihad'. By better understanding what 'ordinary' jihadis, most of whom will never participate in violence, get out of their practices, and how they negotiate the apparent contradictions of their situation, I suggest that we may be better placed to understand not only why some jihadis 'fail' to negotiate these contradictions, but also, perhaps, to raise questions about how popular media consumption works more generally.

This thesis analyses the phenomenon of suicide bombings as manifested in the Palestinian landscape of conflict and attempts to construct a theoretical framework of analysis to study the phenomenon. It investigates Hamas, and most specifically its resort to suicide bombings, from the time of its inception in 1988 to its electoral victory in 2006. In focussing on a particular organisation this work rejects the notion of a monolithic Islamist global threat perpetrated by individuals that are irrational and propelled solely by religion and the call to jihad, irrespective of their organisational affiliation and geographical location. Instead such categorisations are rebuffed by using tools provided by International Relations theory and examples of Hamas that illustrate why and how suicide operations are adopted in a particular socio-political setting. Hence, at its core, this thesis probes how concepts and methods in contemporary International Relations can assist in explaining and understanding the phenomenon of suicide bombings using the specific empirical case of the Hamas. Three broad theoretical methodologies/approaches are utilised in the constructed theoretical framework of analysis, namely Rational Choice Theory, Social Constructivism and the Just War thesis. Each of these is believed to grant equally crucial insights into specific aspects of suicide operations, which when amalgamated provide a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Within this given theoretical structure the thesis demonstrates how Palestinian suicide operations are, first and foremost, a complex combination of instrumental and expressive violence which are adopted by rational actors to assert power, achieve political and/or societal survival and enable retaliation and competition. Second, this work reveals how suicide operations perform an important role in the formation and consolidation of Palestinian national identity and also demonstrates how such acts are used as a mechanism to delineate both organisational and individual space. Finally, this thesis probes how political Islam is employed to facilitate the articulation, justification and legitimisation of suicide operations as a modern-day jihad to Palestinian society through the means of modern interpretations and fatwas. In its endeavours to formulate a more holistic understanding of suicide operations in the Israeli - Palestinian conflict this work consciously uses both positivist and post-positivist concepts as part of its theoretical framework. However, while it employs neo-utilitarian choice-theoretic assumptions as a methodological tool to illustrate one facet of suicide bombings it is, both ontologically and epistemologically, more closely aligned with post-positivists approaches. As such it challenges basic rationalist assumptions that claim value neutrality and treat actors as possessing identities and interests that are autogenous and pre-social. Finally, the methodological structure of this thesis is based on qualitative research which utilises not only primary and secondary source literature but also interview-based field data collected in both Israel and the Palestinian territories from December 2004 to January 2005.

This thesis sets out to consider the discourses which exist on responses to terrorism in the context of the European Union and the United Kingdom. In recent years terrorism has been perceived to be a growing threat and the response strategies directed towards it have become increasingly important. The European Union has, since September 11th 2001, actively developed a response strategy to terrorism. It is possible to identify the official discourses which exist in this area; however, the discourses held by the wider population are less obvious. This thesis aims to explore these hidden discourses further. In particular it is specifically concerned with public perceptions of the response strategies to terrorism and aims to uncover the ways in which these response strategies are constructed beyond the official discourse. This thesis utilises Q methodology in order to examine these discourses. Q methodology is an innovative tool for the exploration of subjectivity. It has rarely been applied to the topic of terrorism and this thesis represents the first time it has been utilised to consider the problem of responses to terrorism in the context of the European Union. Therefore, a further aim of this thesis is to consider the appropriateness of Q methodology as a tool for use in the discipline of International Relations.

This thesis examines the employment of elite military forces in low-intensity and counter-terrorist operations, and in particular, placing the principal emphasis on the aspect of international co-operation in the latter. The experiences of Great Britain and the United States in such operations are the main elements of the discussion, reflecting their heavy involvement in such operations. However, to analyze the experiences of those two countries out of context would be difficult and would distort the perceptions of the problems and desiderata as they evolved historically. Therefore, a survey of contemporary international terrorism, and the reaction to it, is also incorporated within the body of this paper. The British and American sections of the thesis begin by addressing their respective military experiences in the wider realm of low-intensity operations before dealing specifically with modern counter-terrorism. Equally necessary, for a balanced perspective, is the inclusion of the Israeli and West German experience in counter-terrorism; this is briefly addressed in two short case studies on Entebbe and Mogadishu. The main Anglo-American focus of the study gives primary importance to the development and doctrine for the employment of special forces, as well as an analysis of more recent low-intensity and counter-terrorism operations, such as the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London and the failure that same year of the American hostage rescue attempt in Tehran. At this point this thesis attempts to identify and highlight those key aspects of co-operation at an international level which have, at least in part, been the sine qua non of successful counter-terrorist operations in the past and seem to be destined to remain so in the future. While it will be shown that international co-operation is essential in the areas of intelligence, exchanges and attachments between counter-terrorist forces, 'forward-basing' in relevant countries, as well as the acquisition of secure internal and external communications, it will also be argued, nonetheless, that the historical experience and state interest of different countries makes such co-operation more difficult than might appear at first sight. All of these, however, are impossible without the political will on the part of potential co-operating governments to undertake such initiatives. Particularly when one considers the very delicate nature of elite counter-terrorist force employment and the potential for embarrassment which is inherent in their activities and, therefore, cannot always be taken for granted. The findings of this study suggest that such co-operation can indeed provide significant advantages when low-intensity operations call for a response including 'the final option' - the employment of elite counter-terrorist forces. Also clear from this analysis is that the greatest progress in such international co-operation is likely to come from joint activities by countries having a similarly heightened sense of the threat which also implies that they share a common 'sociology' in their view of these historical developments.

This thesis contains three papers on the economic study of domestic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is the most prevalent form of terrorism, yet, when compared to transnational terrorism, is understudied in the literature. This thesis makes two game theoretic and one econometric contribution to this literature. Chapter 3 presents a model of how a revolutionary terrorist interacts with both governments and members of society. This model shows that societies adverse to violence can incentivise reductions in terrorism but can also induce escalations of violence and lax government responses. Chapter 4 contributes to the signalling literature, by painting a revolutionary terrorist that has both political and militant wings. The leadership of this organisation favours one wing over the other and attempts to signal this preference to its rivals. This model shows that terrorist organisations are more likely to signal their true type to adversaries who have access to similar levels of resources. Finally, Chapter 5 uses duration modelling to test the interaction of rival terrorist organisations operating during The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the late-20th century, showing that both the main Republican and Loyalist players deviated from their local and temporal strategies to interact with each other.

The published work on which the submission is founded is Global Terrorism by Paul Medhurst, a UN training course. The background to Global Terrorism and its research began in earnest in 1987 while the author was serving with UNIFIL and continued in subsequent UN peacekeeping missions, including a second tour in UNIFIL during 1993.